


Matoba

by Heliocat



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Archery, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Disguise, Gen, On the Run, Prequel, Yôkai, chase - Freeform, exorcist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22995892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliocat/pseuds/Heliocat
Summary: Seiji Matoba wasn't the first of the Matoba clan to encounter Takashi Natsume. There had been another, a brief and almost forgotten meeting, hidden deep in Natsume's past. Itsuki Matoba, whilst staking out a tengu, saves a mysterious young child being chased by a yokai.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	Matoba

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic that has been languishing on my hard drive for a few years. Natsume is a severely underrated series that deserves A LOT more love!  
> Thanks to Yuki Midorikawa for creating Natsume Yuujinchou - this is a work of fanfiction and I own none of the intellectual property.  
> British English spellings throughout.

Seiji Matoba wasn't the first of the Matoba clan to encounter Takashi Natsume. There had been another, a brief and almost forgotten meeting, hidden deep in Natsume's past, an almost accidental intrusion on what should have been a private exorcism ceremony. He wouldn't remember it as an encounter with an exorcist, although the experience would tally up there with some of the more disturbing and troubling incidents of his childhood.

Natsume hadn't been very old at the time, maybe seven or eight, and had already moved to his third family after his father's death. Days seemed to merge into one confusing haze since he'd been orphaned, as if time no longer ran at the usual rate. He'd been there for around 5 months now, living in a medium-sized apartment in the centre of a large city. They were a married couple in their early-thirties, distant relatives from his mother's side, both office workers who had no children of their own, nor any desires to have any. They neither liked him nor wanted him and had begrudgingly taken him in out of family duty, providing him a futon in the box room (formerly a storage room). He was a quiet and sullen child, prone to fits of hysteria over nothing. Sometimes, he'd talk to thin air, or claim he saw things. Emotionally unstable, with social apathy and most likely diseased with some kind of mental disorder, they thought.

Apart from leaving food out for him every mealtime, they pretty much just left him alone to do as he pleased. This was usually walk alone to school, sit alone at school, eat melon bread alone at lunch, walk back home alone, then hole himself up alone in the box room to do homework or read school library books or just lie and stare at the ceiling. He knew he wasn't welcome there, and the atmosphere in their apartment was always tense and un-homely. He barely spoke to them, and they were like strangers to him.

Their marriage had been breaking down for a couple of years now, long before Natsume had come to be in their care. For the most part, their bickering didn't bother him. He was still too young to understand the ways of romance, and how love can come and go with time. Sometimes, they'd argue about him, never calling him by name. He was always just 'the boy'. He assumed it was like the last family, in that he was weird and they just didn't enjoy his company, so endeavoured to stay out of their way. This was easy, especially in a house where his presence was mostly ignored anyway.

However, while none of the tension between the two was his fault, the pride of adults often leads them to blame an outside source for their misfortune. It was just unfortunate that the source happened to be him.

One day, he was disturbed from his maths homework in the early evening by the sounds of a particularly rambunctious fight. This was more serious than the usual arguments, which mainly involved snide whispers and waspish insults uttered behind closed doors; this time there was full on shouting. Uncle Takahiko had been drinking during the day again, an increasingly common occurrence these days. Something inside had finally snapped; Aunt Noriko had maybe nagged him one too many times, or maybe something had happened at work. Whatever it was, it had escalated into a full blown slanging match between him and his wife.

Curious, Natsume left the relative safety of his box room and toddled down to the kitchen where they were at war. He was scared by the loud cries of hate and the blue language the adults were using towards and about each other. They suddenly saw him, standing there, and fell silent for a moment. How dare he watch them, judging them with those glassy eyes of his that saw much more than they should...

"This is your fault!" Noriko shouted at him. "We were doing OK until you came along! You ruined us!"

Their words stung. He'd tried his best to be good. He'd stayed quietly out of their way, never complained, ate what he was given, kept his things tidy and didn't ask or want for more. He'd not had much trouble with yokai in this area either. Most of those he'd seen had been small ones, but then this was a large city. He assumed either demons favoured the countryside, or else something here was unappealing to them. He didn't think too much into it - he was just grateful that he didn't get bothered by them much here.

He hardly registered any of what they said to him next. Confused and upset, he was trying to figure out where exactly he'd gone wrong this time; last time it had been that massive yokai that lived in the garden, and his constant yelling and running away had worn the family's patience down to a brittle nub. He'd lasted five months there. The time before it had been their oldest son bullying him, a large boy a couple of years older than he was, who would call him names and pinch or hit him, or trip him over when nobody was looking. The one time he'd retaliated (by putting pencil shavings down the back of his shirt) he'd been branded a thug and sent on his way. A short duration at only three months.

While he was no longer listening to their negative feedback and list of blame and fault, he did feel the fist that met with his face.

He cried out in surprise when his uncle punched him on the right cheek. He stumbled, losing his balance and falling backwards onto his rear.

"Stop staring like that!" Takahiko yelled, his words slurring slightly due to his drunken state. He swayed unsteadily on his feet, gripping the kitchen sideboard to keep himself upright. "It's bloody creepy! No wonder nobody wants you!"

"What did you do???" hissed Noriko at Takahiko. "You can't hit him! What'll people say?!"

"It's not like anyone cares!" Takahiko said. "Takashi's like a ghost or something anyway - nobody'll notice! We'll say he walked into a door or something."

Natsume was fighting back the tears that threatened to fall. His face throbbed in time to his heartbeat, and his heart itself felt like a lead weight in his chest. While he knew he was unwanted, nobody had ever said so directly to his face. The words hurt more than the punch. He turned and fled the apartment before they could say anything else to injure him further. The door slammed closed behind him with a resonating crash.

He ran for maybe ten minutes before staggering to a halt, panting for breath and still hiccoughing back sobs, leaning against the side of an alley wall between an apartment block and a convenience store in an area he'd never knowingly been to. He'd been running without thinking, and had accidentally wandered off his usual lonely school route and into a new part of the city. He'd never been properly shown around, so his knowledge of the local geography was limited, and to him all streets in a city looked alike. It was also starting to get dark out, casting long shadows on the ground and causing confusion. In broad daylight, he may have been able to recognise certain landmarks that could lead him back, or at least lead him somewhere he was familiar with, but twilight has a nasty habit of warping perceptions and night time hid familiarity beneath its dark, velvety robe. Great. Now, not only had he caused his current 'family' grief, he was also lost.

He folded his arms over his chest as if hugging himself and shivered slightly. It was cold out tonight; really, he needed a jacket on. All he was wearing was a t-shirt and a pair of old school trousers, but he'd have to make do without. His cheek hurt less now, but he could feel the slight swelling under and around his eye as the starts of a shiner began to blossom. He felt wretched, miserable, and more lonely than ever. He refused to cry, as crying wouldn't help anything, but a few silent tears still managed to sneak their way out of his eyes and wended their way down his face. He turned his back to the wall of the store, leant against it, and slid to the floor, concealed in ever darkening shadows from the cruel world around him.

He stayed there for maybe an hour, hugging his knees to his chest, before anyone, or rather anything, saw him. 

"Child..." he heard something say in a rumbling, deep voice. "Human..."

With a start, he turned to the source of the voice, and with horror saw a massive yokai stooped over the large wheeled bins for the store. It was the first substantially sized one he'd seen here, maybe the size of a large bull elephant, stood awkwardly on two legs with a body like a tiger and the head and hands of a man. Long, greasy hair the shade of onyx hung down its back and it was wearing a fabric mask tied over its eyes with the kanji for 'bite' written on it. He saw claw-like black fingernails and a dirty loincloth around its waist. It seemed to give off a permanent low growling noise that made the ground vibrate. He gave a gasp of surprise and terror.

"You see meeeee...." moaned the yokai, appearing both annoyed and overjoyed by this. "You see meeeee! I eat you!!!"

"Noooo!" Natsume yelled. He scrambled up and began running, again blindly, this time in terror. The yokai was fast, dropping onto all fours and ambling along behind him, calling out for him to stop so it could eat him. It would be harder to lose it in a city; there were no trees to climb, less places to adequately hide. His only hope would be in finding a shrine, but even they were few and far between.

He came to the edges of a park, abandoned this time of day, and dashed into the wide, open space. He wouldn't be able to run for much longer. Already he could feel his legs starting to shake with fatigue; he'd never had a lot of stamina, especially over distance. He tripped over something, a rock maybe, or even just his own feet, and crashed hard into the ground with a yelp, grazing his hands and dirtying his clothes. He had no time to get up and continue, besides which his legs refused to obey him anymore, before the yokai was upon him.

"YESSSSS! I EAT YOU, CHILD!" it crowed, grabbing Natsume by the leg and raising him, upside down, into the air. "YOU SMELL TASTYYYYYY!" Natsume screamed and writhed around, flailing wildly, his t-shirt sliding down his chest leaving his torso bare and making it difficult to see as the baggy fabric hung in his eyes. Usually, if he could land a hit on these things, they let him go, although the same couldn't be said of humans. Punch a person and they'd just get up and punch you back twice as hard! Yokai, however, seemed to be super-affected by his weedy little fists. The problem here was that this yokai was a lot bigger than he was, taller and with longer limbs. By holding him at arm's length, it effectively kept Natsume out of reach and therefore he couldn't hit it, kick it, bite it, headbutt it or otherwise even touch it in any way, and being upside-down meant that gravity was working against him. He'd been running from these beings as long as he could remember but, for the first time, one of them had managed to catch him and successfully get him into a vulnerable position.

"Please... no! Put me down! Let me go!" His pleas were ignored.

Is this really how it ends? Alone, unwanted, eaten by some ugly yokai in a city he never wanted to live in anyway. Nobody would know what had happened to him. He'd be just another missing person, his photo tacked onto the notice board of the police station and forgotten about. On the plus side, he'd be with his parents again...

He physically cringed as the yokai licked him, making unhappy staccato noises of discomfort and fear. It wrapped its unnaturally long, blue and slimy tongue around his midriff, caressing him with his tastebuds. He tried to push his shirt back over his stomach with one hand to stop it from touching his bare skin with its unpleasant tongue, while still attempting to smack it away with the other. He failed miserably at both tasks. He whined hopelessly.

"TASTY!" it proclaimed him to be. Natsume was unsure whether to take this as a final compliment before he died. He was useless at pretty much everything, but apparently he was delicious. That was something, he supposed. "I EAT YOUUUUUU!" the yokai repeated.

"Just get it over with..." he mumbled depressingly as he stopped struggling, bracing himself for inevitable pain.

There was a bright light, a whooshing sound... and the yokai screamed and dropped him.

He landed on his back with a thud that took the wind out of him. He gave a yelp of surprise when he looked up and saw an arrow sticking out of the yokai's chest, a piece of paper tied to it. The yokai was yelling in anguish, flailing in agony of its own and trying to pull the arrow out. There was another whoosh, a dull thump, and a second arrow made its home through the eye of the yokai, skewering the mask and bringing with it an abrupt silence. The yokai seemed to quiver slightly before its body began disintegrating, falling into dust that blew away in the wind. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he searched in the direction the arrows had come from for their source.

The archer was humanoid in appearance, wearing traditional style clothes in muted grey colours and strung with paper charms. He could be human, it was impossible to tell, as they were wearing an elaborate mask that obscured most of their face and was topped with a feathered headdress that hung down the back of the head, tickled their shoulders and continued in an avian waterfall down their back. The feathers looked to be those of a crow or raven, and the odd few had been stripped of barbs and strung with brightly coloured beads instead. Erring on the side of caution, Natsume was going to assume he was a yokai and treat the newcomer with suspicion. After all, he could see the yokai; so far, the only beings Natsume knew to be able to see them had been other yokai. He'd yet to learn of his inheritance from his grandmother, and he'd never met an exorcist before.

"A big one. Thought I'd exorcised all those. Not seen one that size in a long while. Still, it's not the one I was after," the archer murmured mainly to himself. That explained the lack of yokai in this area at any rate, if he was going around shooting them all. They'd either be dead, or the smarter ones would have left the area. Judging from the clothes, the flat chest and the deep voice, Natsume assumed this being was male. At present, they had a third arrow pointed at him.

"Human?" they asked in little more than a grunt. Natsume didn’t reply, his eyes fixated on the tip of the arrow, still shaking, still absolutely terrified. After considering him for a moment or two, the archer lowered his bow and relaxed the string. "I ask because apparently you have the sight. You see them?" he asked, gesturing with a flick of his head so that the feathers cascading down his spine jiggled and danced. Natsume kept his silence. He'd been punished enough for 'lying' before, and further punished for seeing by the yokai, that he automatically clammed up at that question whenever it was asked so as to stay out of trouble.

"You shouldn't be out alone at this time," the archer said. "Never know what's out there." Funny how he used the word 'what' and not 'who', Natsume thought.

"You must have a pretty powerful spiritual awareness if you can see them and they are interested in you," he continued. "We're always looking out for your kind. Why not come with me? I'll show you what myself and my people do, and maybe one day you could join us."

"No," Natsume finally found his voice.

"Hmm...?"

"I... I shouldn't go with strangers, especially for yokai stuff. It'll cause problems for my... my... um..." He trailed off, unable to answer. What were his uncle and aunt anyway? Guardians? Not like they wanted him. Besides which, he still didn't know if this guy was human or not.

"Orphaned?" guessed the archer. "I see. Must be hard."

"I... I should be getting back," Natsume stuttered nervously, standing and brushing himself down. He should go home, accept their wrath, and get on with his miserable life. Only problem was he still had no idea where he was exactly. Why oh why did he have to get moved around so often? He'd barely even started school in the last town he'd lived in before he'd been hoisted off here! Darkness was a disorientating illusion, but even without it he wouldn't have recognised anything here. He'd never been to a park during his stay at this place so far, and all he knew well was the route to school. The archer could see he looked troubled by the way he looked around fretfully and fidgeted with his hands.

"Lost?"

"No... I-"

"TAKASHIIIIIIIII!"

A voice on the breeze. A woman out searching. Natsume flinched at the sound.

"TAKASHI! WHERE ARE YOU? TAKASHI!!!"

"For you?" enquired the archer, smiling with a whimsical expression.

"Oh no..." Natsume muttered. Aunt Noriko did not sound happy.

"Better go Takashi-kun," he said. "Don't want to keep her waiting. Please, consider my offer. We're always ready to welcome people with your gifts. I'll keep my eye out for you." He turned and left, following the path into a clump of trees and almost magically blending into them and vanishing. He never did find out if he was human or not.

"I wouldn't go off with a yokai anyway..." he muttered to himself.

He was long gone by the time Noriko appeared. The first thing she did upon approaching Takashi was slap him round the face.

"How dare you run out like that!" she shrieked at him. "After all we've done for you this is how you replay us? By running away? I've been looking for you for half an hour! That's half an hour of my time wasted! Ungrateful little shit!"

"I'm sorry," he whispered. Still, he’d been out of the house for a lot longer than half an hour, so she hadn’t been searching that long.

"So you should be!" she said, miffed. "Look - you're filthy! Let's get home."

She roughly grabbed his wrist and dragged him along. Natsume trailed after her, feeling wretched again. He'd caused them trouble. That meant he wouldn't be there much longer. He was right.

"After having a chat, Takahiko and I decided that it's not working out, us looking after you, so tomorrow you'll be moving in with my sister instead," Noriko said, her heels clicking on the pavement as she forged ahead with Natsume almost jogging behind to keep up. "We've already called her. She said her husband will be here at 10am to get you, so when you get in collect your things together ready to go. Frankly, we'll be glad to see the back of you."

His heart sank. Yet another new family. How long would they last, he wondered. Morale at an all time low, he just nodded his head in reply. Maybe it would have been better if the yokai had just eaten him. At least then he'd not have to deal with this miserable life any more.

***

Itsuki Matoba had originally been searching for a city-dwelling tengu, staking out the trees in the park, when he'd encountered the child. He was young - too young to be out alone at this time - and sprinting as if his life depended on it. Something was chasing him, something that terrified him. Looking over in the direction the boy had come from, Itsuki saw a massive yokai galloping along, salivating and laughing gleefully. There was a cry; the boy had tripped over a hollow in the grass, faceplanting magnificently out in the open. He yelled again as the yokai towered above him and hoisted him up by one leg. To his credit, he fought wildly and viciously, he was just too small to reach anything significant from the position he was in. Itsuki observed the yokai as it first examined, then sniffed, then licked the child, periodically saying that it was going to eat him and that he was tasty.

The final nail in the coffin was seeing the child give up. It was pitiful, but an all too common occurrence amongst prey animals. They lose the fight when hope is lost.

He unhooked his bow from his shoulder, notched an arrow, and took careful aim. He didn't want to hit the boy, at least not yet. He was fairly certain they were human, but yokai are tricky beasts, often disguising themselves, so he needed to confirm whether they were human or not first. It'd be murder if he made a mistake. He fired the arrow just as the yokai was about to take its first bite, the projectile slamming into its chest, the effects of the charm tied to it instantaneous. It dropped the child, distracted by the pain it was now undoubtedly in. He shot another arrow through its head, killing it. 

"A big one. Thought I'd exorcised all those. Not seen one that size in a long while. Still, it's not the one I was after," he muttered mainly to himself. 

The boy had sat up and was now staring at him with wide eyes. He notched a third arrow, aiming at the child, sensing a strange aura of untapped power from him. Humans rarely gave off spirit energy of that calibre.

"Human?" he asked, trying to see obvious signs of yokai-ness on the small body. Yokai usually have tell-tale giveaways as to their true nature, usually in the form of painted charms or seals, or animal features such as ears, tails, wings or claws, or unnatural coloured eyes. There were none, although the boy was reluctant to answer his question. He guessed the answer from the flicker of expression in his eyes; yokai tended to have simpler emotions to read, and they also got angry if you so much as insinuated they were human. He looked like a regular human. Very scrawny, quite short and with a girlish face, pale silvery-blonde hair and grey eyes. He looked Japanese, but as if someone had drained all the colour out of him. If it wasn't for the modern clothing, you could almost mistake him for a zashiki warashi. Strangely, this colouration was common amongst those with the sight; the Natori boy who the young master showed an interest in had a similar appearance. "I ask because apparently you have the sight," he said, lowering his arrow. "You see them?"

The boy remained silent. Understandable really; most people would call you a liar if you admitted it. Also, he was disguised as a yokai, and the youth was being wisely cautious. He could see the boy was terrified, his arms shaking uncontrollably, but he seemed to be putting on a brave effort at disguising that fear.

"You shouldn't be out alone at this time," he told the boy. "Never know what's out there. You must have a pretty powerful spiritual awareness if you can see them and they are interested in you. We're always looking out for your kind. Why not come with me? I'll show you what myself and my people do, and maybe one day you could join us."

"No." The boy spoke. A single but defiant negative.

"Hmm...?"

"I... I shouldn't go with strangers, especially for yokai stuff. It'll cause problems for my... my... um..." He struggled for a describing word.

"Orphaned?" Itsuki guessed out loud. That explained why he was out alone. He was probably a very lonely and misunderstood child. He saw a fresh bruise on his face. It looked recent. He'd run away from some kind of domestic abuse. "I see. Must be hard."

"I... I should be getting back," he stuttered, standing and patting the worst of the dirt off his shirt. He glanced around nervously, fingers twitching and body language displaying all the signs of discomfort. He hadn't a clue where he was.

"Lost?"

"No... I-"

"TAKASHIIIIIIIII!"

There came the sound of an angry woman from nearby. He saw the boy stiffen, his eyes widen as he recognised the voice.

"TAKASHI! WHERE ARE YOU? TAKASHI!!!"

Itsuki put two and two together. The boy in front of him was this 'Takashi'. "For you?" he asked.

"Oh no..." Takashi whimpered. 

"Better go Takashi-kun," he said. "Don't want to keep her waiting. Please, consider my offer. We're always ready to welcome people with your gifts. I'll keep my eye out for you." He left Takashi to his fate, going back to his hunt for the tengu. If he lived locally no doubt he'd see him again in the future, and could test his skills and enquire further about him maybe joining the Matoba.

He wasn't to know that Takashi would move away the following day.

While his interest had been piqued by the child who could see yokai, he never did see him again, at least not until many years later. By doing a bit of digging, he discovered his family had sent him away due to marital strife, and had been further shifted along between relatives since then. Itsuki had been called to a Matoba clan reunion by Seiji Matoba, the new head of the family, to discuss current exorcism plans. It was there that a boy by the name of Takashi Natsume was mentioned, who matched the description of the boy Itsuki had met. Photos were shown; images of the boy taken with what looked to be an extremely fat and ugly calico cat and the Natori lad. Apparently, the two were friends, or at the very least acquaintances.

Obviously he was older now. He'd grown into a rather awkward teenager, apparently socially shy and often sickly due to the effects of cavorting with yokai, but harbouring some mysterious power that Matoba wanted on their side. They were told that if they ever saw him alone, they were to encourage him to join Matoba by any means necessary. The numbers of viable exorcists were dwindling, and he would make a valuable addition to the clan.

Itsuki decided against telling the clan he'd met Natsume before. It seemed trivial now, although if it wasn't for him the boy wouldn't be here today. He was happy to see he was still alive and well, however. Who knows – if Seiji had his way, it might not be long before they could call each other ‘brother’.


End file.
